Songs to A. H. R.
I
Minglings
It is the old old vision,
The moonlit sea—and you.
I cannot make disseverance
Between the two.
For all the world’s wide beauty
To me you seem,
All that I love in shadow
Or glow or gleam.
It is the old old murmur,
The sea’s sound and your voice.
God in his Bliss between them
Could make no choice.
For all the world’s deep music
In you I hear:
Nor shall I ask death, ever,
For aught more dear.
II
Love and Infinity
Across the kindling twilight moon
A late gull wings to rest.
The sea is murmuring underneath
Its vast eternal quest.
The coast-light flashes over the tide
A red and warning eye,
And oh the world is very wide,
But you are nigh!
The stars come out from zone to zone,
The wind knows every one
And blows their message to my heart,
As it has ever done.
“They are all God’s,” it tells me, “all,
However huge or high.”
But ah I could not trust its call—
Were you not by!
III
Recompense
Not if I chose from a world of days
Could I find a day like this.
The sky is a wreath of azure haze
And the sea an azure bliss.
The surf runs racing the young salt wind,
Shouting without a fear
Over reef, bar, cliff and scaur,
Where you and I lie near.
O you and I who have watched the sky
And sea from many a shore!
You, love, and I who will live and die—
And watch the sea no more!
O joy of the world! Joy of love,
Joy that can say to death,
“Tho you end all with your wanton pall,
We two have had this breath!”
IV
At the Ebb-Hour
As I hear, thro the midnight sighing,
The low ebb-tide withdrawn,
And gulls on the dark cliff crying
For far discernless dawn,
It seems that all life is lying
Within your every breath,
Yet I can not believe in dying,
Or death.
As I hear, from the gray church tower,
The bell’s unfailing sound
Peal forth hour after hour
To night’s lone reaches round,
It seems as if Time’s wan power
Would sear all things apace—
All, save in my heart one flower,
Your face.
V
In a Dark Hour
You are not with me—only the moon,
The sea and the gulls’ cry, out of tune;
The myriad cry of the gulls still strewn
On the sands where the tide will enter soon.
You are not with me, only the breath
Of the wind—and then the wind’s death.
A shrouding silence then that saith,
“Even as wind love vanisheth.”
You are not with me—only fear,
As old as earth’s first frenzied bier
That severed two whose hearts were near,
And left one with all Life unclear.
VI
Via Amorosa
When we two walk, my love, on the path
The moon makes over the sea,
To the end of the world where sorrow hath
An end that is ecstasy,
Should we not think of the other road
Of wearying dust and stone
Our feet would fare did each but care
To follow the way alone?
When we two slip at night to the skies
And find one star that we keep
As a trysting-place to which our eyes
May lead our souls ere sleep,
Should we not pause for a little space
And think how many must sigh
Because they gaze over starry ways
With no heart-comrade by?
When we two then lie down to our dreams
That deepen still the delight
Of our wandering where stars and streams
Stray in immortal light,
Should we not grieve with the myriads
From East of earth to West
Who lay them down at night but to drown
A longing for some loved breast?
Ah, yes, for life has a thousand gifts,
But love it is gives life.
Who walks thro his world in loneness lifts
A soul that is sorrow-rife.
But they to whom it is given to tread
The moon-path and not sink
Can ever say the unhappiest way
Earth has is fair, to the brink.
VII
Transfusion
A shoal-light flashes east,
And livid lightning west,
The silvery dark night-sea between,
On which we ride at rest,
And gaze far, far away
Into the fretless skies,
World-sadness in our thought—but ah,
Content within our eyes.
The ship’s bell strikes—the sound
Floats shrouded to our ears,
Then suddenly, as at a touch,
The universe appears
A Presence Infinite
That penetrates our love
And makes us one with night and sea
And all the stars above.